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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Wild and Woolly!

This is a bit of a belated post, kids are on holidays so I'm a wee bit busy!

I've mentioned MakeSpace, the artisan cooperative coordinated by my friend Edwina, before and I've also mentioned Renew Newcastle, an initiative to fill old, and often run-down, shops on the Hunter Street Mall (in years gone by the main shopping street in Newcastle) with non-rent paying groups of artist or crafters who do up the spaces and make use of them until someone wishes to rent them. The aim is to Renew Newcastle! MakeSpace is now onto it's 4th shop, having done a great job of making their previous spaces desirable to renters. This Thursday just gone was the annual Winter Wander where the locals get to have a look and see what all the different Renew participants are up to, have some mulled wine and sticky date puddings, a bit of communal crochet (or pompom making) and listen to some live music on the Mall. I took some photos early on but by the end of the evening, Edwina said they had served 220 sticky date puddings in 20 mins! It was a busy evening! Unfortunately we didn't get around to yarn bombing the Mall but we had a bit of a crochet-along and I sold a scarf!

After all the wandering was completed, there was an invitation to go along to the hippest (in the most Hipster sense you can imagine) new bar in Newcastle, Terrace Bar, where there was food, wine and music. Edwina and I stayed on when the others left as, with 8 kids between us, we don't get out often and got a little excited to go upstairs to hear the music! We were looking forward to the music until it started and we realised that we were too old to be deafened and headed back down stairs! Couple of old dears!

We ended the evening by tracking down some fantastic pides in Beaumont Street before heading home before midnight.

Meg and I managed to make it to the Olive Tree Market on Saturday, thanks to no football, and came across someone new, Blonde Samurai, who makes gorgeous glass beads and necklaces which will make very nice presents come Christmas time, along with our usual favourites such as Frejj, Sketch and Jones, DJL tees for the men in our lives, Jo Dyer and Pipkids. We came home to a nice tidy house - good boys!

As for the holidays, there has been much of the usual, although since Wimbledon starts about 11pm here, it's usually following a long lie-in... Hoping Andy can deal with Roger swiftly tonight as I could really do with an early one!

7 comments:

Hope Andy does have a big win. We also need to keep and eye on the Moto GP, the Formula 1 and of course the Tour de France. I'm exhausted. as for the winter blues. I get them every year but agreed you need to make plans and keep busy. It is only a short time. We had a Swedish exchange student visit with us last week and it was a reminder of how well off we are. imagine the dark days in winter they putnup with. even he admitted he goes a little loony.

What a great idea and fabulous night out!!!!!! You sound like you are taking "keeping busy" to the girl extreme! Yay! Wish I was with you, what fun! And what a fabulous idea with the mall. There needs to be more accessible nights out for women with kids that don't involve huge costs, nightclubs and late hours! I love this! Glad you had fun Sandra!!

It really is a great idea, we keep talking about doing something regularly but haven't managed it yet. I think it's quite hard to find evening venues for a knit and natter style event but definitely worth doing.

All looks fantastic Sandra! We love going along to the fairs/festivals in our community, always such a great atmosphere and a terrific showcase of all the local talent. And pides on the way home sounds just about perfect to me. Love the pics xo

That looked like fun Sandra. I live on the outskirts of Newcastle but other than your blog I've not seen or heard anything about this project. I'd be interested in knowing about future events. Is there a website to sign up to?

Check out LiveSites and Renew Newcastle on google and like their facebook pages. Make Space have a facebook page and often link to other events going on in Newcastle. Also The Novocastrian Files and Urban Insider have great blogs with loads of local information.